eWakening now

Petros to Teach Class on "How to Be a Student"

2012-01-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

Petros will be offering a free class on the foundations of what it means to be a student of spirituality, and how one must be clear about one's attitude toward the teacher as well as being clear about one's own goals in the pursuit of a valid path of spiritual growth. This class will help get students off to a good start in the new year.

Date: Friday, Jan. 6, 2012
Time: 7pm

Location:

Alpha Book Center
4532 N. 7th St.
Phoenix, AZ 85017

Your best at your simplest (Mel Lyman)

2011-11-20T11:20:00.000-08:00

All things unfold from a common source, there is but one center to the universe, all things are rooted there.

Learn how to eliminate all that is superficial and unnecessary, what hinders you from knowing the source from whence you came: it is so much garbage piled up between you and your soul, it distorts the tree and fouls the song and muddles the story and twists the desire, it strangles the root and starves the flower, it KILLS.

At your simplest you are at your best, the good in you is free to come forth, why display empty pretence to cover scanty knowledge, it is so easy to say it hurts. The good in you will not forsake you, only you can forsake IT.

Petros to Teach Tibetan Buddhism Class

2011-09-24T01:02:00.001-07:00

Petros will be offering a free class on Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) on Friday, October 7th at 7pm. This class will pick off where his "Introduction to Buddhism" class left on, working toward more advanced aspects of practice for those seriously interested in the Dharma.

Location:
Alpha Book Center
4532 N. 7th St.
Phoenix AZ

Friday, 7 October 2011
7:00 pm

Petros to Teach Introduction to Buddhism Class

2011-09-09T00:57:00.000-07:00

Petros will be teaching a free class, "Introduction to Buddhism 1," on Friday, Sept. 16 at 7pm. The class will cover the fundamental principles of Buddhism for those unfamiliar with it. It is intended to serve as groundwork for future planned classes on more advanced dharma topics such as Vajrayana.

Location:
Alpha Book Center
4532 N. 7th St.
Phoenix, AZ

16 September 2011

Flavor of Nonexistence (Milarepa)

2011-07-03T03:47:00.000-07:00

Because there is no difference between Static and Active Meditation, I have no need for the different stages in the Path. Whatever they may manifest, their essence is Voidness; there is neither mindfulness nor nonmindfulness in my contemplation. I have tasted the flavor of Non-existence; compared to other teachings, this is the highest.

-- Milarepa

Meditate Not to Meditate (Milarepa)

2011-06-26T03:38:00.000-07:00

Moreover, to meditate is an illusory thought;
Not to meditate is illusory, too.
It is the same whether or not you meditate.

-- Milarepa

Nobody's World (Trungpa)

2011-06-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

In relating with the world, there are some very tough questions. What is the world? Whose world is it? What does relating mean? The basic point is that this is nobody's world, since there is nobody as such. The energy constantly taking place does not belong to anybody but is a natural organic process.

-- Chogyam Trungpa, from True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art.

The Middle Way (Aryadeva)

2011-06-12T03:33:00.000-07:00

Not existence and not nonexistence
Not these two conjoined nor the opposite of this
Freed from four extremes, the truly wise
Are those who keep within the middle way.

-- Aryadeva

Phenomena Unarising (Nagarjuna)

2011-06-05T03:30:00.001-07:00

Neither from themselves,
Nor from another cause,
Not from both,
Nor yet without a cause:
Phenomena indeed of any kind are never born.

-- Nagarjuna, from the Mulamadhyamaka-karika (Foundation of the Middle Way)

Renouncing Renouncing (Chiang Wei-nung)

2011-05-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

By renouncing attachment to a self, we become arhats. By renouncing attachment to dharmas, we become bodhisattvas. By renouncing renouncing, we become buddhas. Thus sila (renunciation) is the ultimate practice.

– Chiang Wei-nung, commenting on the Diamond Sutra

Mind Not Found (Huang-po)

2011-05-22T15:41:00.002-07:00

Most people allow their mind to be obstructed by the world and then try to escape from the world. They don't realize that their mind obstructs the world. If they could only let their minds be empty, the world would be empty. Don't misuse the mind. If you want to be free of the world, forget the mind. When you forget the mind the world becomes empty. When the world becomes empty the mind disappears. If you don't forget the mind and only get rid of the world, you only become more confused. Thus it is said all things are only mind – But mind cannot be found! When you can't find a thing you have reached the final goal. Why run around looking for liberation?

-- Huang-po, commenting on the Diamond Sutra

True Intent (Gulin)

2011-05-15T00:19:00.002-07:00

It is said that if a single person generates true intent and returns to the origin, then all of space in the ten directions crumbles away.

-- Gulin (14th cent. Chinese Ch'an master)

Development around us (Mel Lyman)

2011-05-14T22:08:00.003-07:00

All form is only the evolution of mind at different stages of development. We are constantly surrounded by the opportunity to give birth to more of ourselves.

-- Mel Lyman (1938-1978?)

Neurokaotic Reprogramming 2

2011-05-08T14:55:00.001-07:00

You have the resources you need.
If you don’t have the resources you need
You have the resources to FIND the resources you need.

Gurdjieff: Real Understanding

2011-04-23T23:23:00.001-07:00

Among Gurdjieff's closest pupils there has been no unanimity as to how we are to understand his intentions. He made many confusing and contradictory statements that could not be attributed either to carelessness or to caprice. … He was well aware that the sense of satisfaction that overtakes our thinking apparatus when we recognize a formula that fits our mental patterns is a barrier to real understanding.

-- J.G. Bennett, from Gurdjieff: Making a New World

Neuromagickal Reprogramming 1

2011-04-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

Some Basic Postulates of NMR

The neuromagician knows that the map is not the territory, but can affect how we approach the territory. He knows that making a better map means he will have a better experience.

The neuromagician knows that experience has a deep inner structure, and that to learn about this structure is to be able to affect experience.

The neuromagician knows that body and mind are parts of a single continuum, and affect each other reciprocally.

The neuromagician knows that we already have all the resources we need. He also knows that if we don’t have all the resources we need, we have the resources to find the resources we need.

The neuromagician knows that most communication is nonverbal. We can’t not communicate. He knows that the meaning of a communication is the response it gets.

The neuromagician knows that there is no failure, only feedback. He knows that the solution that doesn’t work may be the solution to a different problem.

The neuromagician knows that poor judgment leads to experience which leads to better judgment.

The neuromagician lives in the present but is able to use the past (to re-evaluate) and the future (to motivate) as needed.

The neuromagician knows that to get off the rollercoaster of emotions is just a matter of objective dissociation — not identifying.

Time & Space in Dzogchen

2011-04-10T00:42:00.002-07:00

If time and space are absent when scrutinized, then in the same way they are surely absent when they are not under scrutiny, for then the parameters of investigation are absent and the objective field has neither specific nor general characteristics.

-- Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen (trans. Keith Dowman)

Time and Reality (Godel)

2011-03-27T01:51:00.001-07:00

The illusion of the passage of time arises from the confusing of the given with the real. Passage of time arises because we think of occupying different realities. In fact, we occupy only different givens. There is only one reality, without time.

-- Kurt Godel

Laws of Manu 12.102

2011-03-20T00:29:00.001-07:00

One who knows the true meaning of the teachings of the Veda becomes fit for union with ultimate reality even while remaining here in this world, no matter what stage of life he is in.

-- Laws of Manu, 12.102

Abyss

2011-03-13T03:25:00.001-07:00

We don't look into the Abyss, we look out of it from within it.

Logical necessity (Einstein)

2011-02-27T03:30:00.000-08:00

What I'm really interested in is whether God could have made the world in a different way, that is, whether the necessity of logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all.

– Einstein

Inquirers into Wonder (Heidegger)

2011-02-20T01:31:00.001-08:00

Only because of wonder, the revelation of Nothing, does the “Why?” spring to our lips. Only because this “Why?” is possible as such can we seek for reasons and proofs in a definite way. Only because we can ask and prove are we fated to become inquirers in this life. The inquiry into Nothing puts us, the inquirers, ourselves in question. It is a metaphysical one.

-- Heidegger, from "What is Metaphysics?"

Lifestream of Synchronicity (Bertiaux)

2011-02-13T02:50:00.001-08:00

Somewhere at the heart of it all there is a certain energy, which cannot be seen, for it makes itself known and felt only in oracles. This energy, which is the lifestream of synchronicity, is in reality the presence of the Genius of IFA, acting out the enjoyment of the play of being-space-consciousness. By entering the waters of synchronicity which float endlessly in the spaces of what is, we can communicate with this magickal power, and thereby find ourselves within the continuum of being – yet moving beyond it, only to desire to merge with it once more.

-- Michael Bertiaux, from Voudon Gnostic Workbook (p. 363)

Scientific "Thinking Cap" Boosts Brain Power

2011-02-05T23:45:00.001-08:00

Scientists have created a real-life thinking cap which works by zapping electricity through the brain. The strange-looking headgear has had extraordinary results and experts believe it could help people be more creative. The device was developed by the University of Sydney's Center for the Mind and suppresses the left side of the brain to catalyze the more creative right side into action.

The device, which uses two electricity conductors, significantly boosted results in a simple math test. Out of a sample of 60 participants, three times as many people who wore the cap were able to complete it, compared to those who tried it without. The cap was inspired by accident victims who experienced a sudden surge in creativity after damaging the left side of their brains.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3404056/Thinking-cap-zaps-brain-to-make-people-more-creative.html

Short-term Meditation Changes Brain

2011-01-23T19:16:00.002-08:00

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital had meditation study participants take part in an eight-week meditation program requiring only 30 minutes of unstructured meditation per day. Brain scans conducted at the end of the test period showed that even within this brief span of time, changes in certain parts of the brain could be detected.

The brain scans showed that participants' hippocampal regions had increased, suggesting an increase in capacity for memory and learning. Also, the density of the amygdala decreased, implying a decrease in stress and anxiety.

Such studies demonstrate that the brain is highly malleable and readily responds to even short-term, light meditational discipline.

Source:

http://io9.com/5741192/even-a-little-meditation-can-change-the-structure-of-your-brain

Yoga Sutras: Subtle Attainments

2011-01-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

The subtler attainments come with birth or are attained through herbs (ausadhi), mantra, austerities and rituals (tapas) or concentration (samadhi).

– Patanjali, Yoga Sutras, 4.1

Petros to Teach Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

2011-01-05T02:37:00.000-08:00

Petros will be teaching an in-depth class on the famous Yoga Sutras of the ancient Indian master Patanjali. This form of spiritual practice is also known as Raja Yoga (Royal Yoga) and Ashtanga Yoga (Eight-limbed yoga), and is a complete system of attainment used by meditators for centuries.

Location:
Alpha Book Center
4532 N. 7th St.
Phoenix AZ

Date: Friday 7 January 2011, 7pm

$10 donation required

Yoga Sutras, 1.12-1.14

2011-01-02T17:01:00.000-08:00

One's turbulent thought patterns are controlled and eventually mastered through practice and non-attachment. Practice means selecting the right actions and applying the right efforts to bring a stable advanced state. When such practice is done consistently and with devotion, it becomes a firmly rooted, solid foundation for further attainments.

-- Patanjali, Yoga Sutras 1.12-1.14

Yoga Sutras 1.2

2010-12-26T18:19:00.003-08:00

Yoga is the restraint of the chaotic fluctuations of the mind which obscure one's innate Adeptship from oneself.

-- Patanjali, Yoga Sutras, 1.2

Petros will be giving a one-hour class introducing Raja Yoga (a.k.a. the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali) on Friday, 7 January 2011 at Alpha Books (4532 N. 7th St. Phoenix).

The Yoga Sutras may be read at: http://home.earthlink.net/~xristos/patanjali.htm.

Petros is now on Squidoo

2010-12-19T02:07:00.002-08:00

Various eWakening and Petros websites have now been conveniently assembled on an easy-to-access Squidoo ™ page! Check it out! http://www.squidoo.com/ewakening

Squidoo is a popular publishing platform and community that makes it easy for people to create “lenses” online. Lenses are pages, like flyers or signposts or overview articles, that gather everything a user knows about a topic of interest — and snap it all into focus.

eWakenShare (Beta) is now online!

2010-12-12T00:33:00.000-08:00

eWakenShare is now up and running. Petros' latest innovation combines spirituality with prosperity. Copy and share the eWakenShare meme and watch your prosperity become magnified.

Our Mysterious Universe, Part II

2010-10-24T01:52:00.000-07:00

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled persons make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence: because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.

-- Wikipedia

Creative Basis of Magick (Bertiaux)

2010-10-17T05:16:00.000-07:00

The magician will always be looking for opportunities to create his own magickal system of the world. He will be looking always for ideas and the simplest of elements, to be found anywhere, from which there will emerge a picture of reality, his reality. The creative energies of true practitioners of this art of cosmic creation are collected from here and there and fused together into a very wonderful picture of being. This is the basis of magick -- your imagination is making the world to be as it is in itself.

-- Michael Bertiaux

Religion vs. Magic (AC)

2010-10-10T07:10:00.000-07:00

The only real strength of any religion is derived from its pilfering of Magical doctrine; and, religious persons being by definition entirely unscrupulous, it follows that any given religion is likely to contain scraps of Magical doctrine, filched more or less haphazard from one school or the other as occasion serves.

-- Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears

Abyss in Between (K. Grant)

2010-10-03T03:15:00.002-07:00

The gulf of the Abyss is the cosmic analogy, in terms of infinity, endurance, and remoteness, of the infinitesimally near and the infinitely fleeting; the finest, and normally imperceptible gap between thoughts that yields to hypersensitive awareness, a sudden insight into the real substratum of Being. This only is Reality, the sole Reality, and it is Non-Being -- the noumenal source from which arises the world of appearances.

-- Kenneth Grant, from Cults of the Shadow

Beginning Middle End (Mel Lyman)

2010-09-19T01:44:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, there was God.
In the middle, there was Man.
In the ending, there was more God.

-- Mel Lyman (1938-1978?)

Our Mysterious Universe, Part I

2010-09-05T07:08:00.002-07:00

The Banach–Tarski paradox is a theorem in set theoretic geometry which states that a solid ball in 3-dimensional space can be split into a finite number of non-overlapping pieces, which can then be put back together in a different way to yield two identical copies of the original ball. The reassembly process involves only moving the pieces around and rotating them, without changing their shape. However, the pieces themselves are complicated: they are not usual solids but infinite scatterings of points. A stronger form of the theorem implies that given any two "reasonable" objects (such as a small ball and a huge ball), either one can be reassembled into the other. This is often stated colloquially as "a pea can be chopped up and reassembled into the Sun."

The reason the Banach–Tarski theorem is called a paradox is because it contradicts basic geometric intuition. "Doubling the ball" by dividing it into parts and moving them around by rotations and translations, without any stretching, bending, or adding new points, seems to be impossible, since all these operations preserve the volume, but the volume is doubled in the end.

-- Wikipedia, "Banach-Tarski paradox"

Universal Form of Krishna

2010-08-29T01:55:00.001-07:00

The vast manifestation of the phenomenal material world as a whole is the mask-body (persona) of the formless Pure Energy, Transcendent Reality of Spirit, wherein the universal resultant past, present and future of material time is experienced.

Persons who have realized it have studied that the planets known as Pātāla constitute the bottoms of the feet of the universal Lord, and the heels and the toes are the Rasātala planets. The ankles are the Mahātala planets, and His shanks constitute the Talātala planets.

The knees of the universal form are the planetary system of the name Sutala, and the two thighs are the Vitala and Atala planetary systems. The hips are Mahītala, and outer space is the depression of His navel.

The chest of the Original Personality of the gigantic form is the luminary planetary system, His neck is the Mahar planets, His mouth is the Janas planets, and His forehead is the Tapas planetary system. The topmost planetary system, known as Satyaloka, is the head of He who has one thousand heads.

His arms are the demigods headed by Indra, the ten directional sides are His ears, and physical sound is His sense of hearing. His nostrils are the two Aśvinī-kumāras, and material fragrance is His sense of smell. His mouth is the blazing fire.

The sphere of outer space constitutes His eyepits, and the eyeball is the sun as the power of seeing. His eyelids are both the day and night, and in the movements of His eyebrows, the Brahmā and similar supreme personalities reside. His palate is the director of water, Varuṇa, and the essence of taste of everything is His tongue.

The Vedic hymns are the cerebral passage of the Lord, and His jaws of teeth are Yama, god of death, who punishes the sinners. The art of affection is His set of teeth, and the most alluring illusory material energy is His smile. This great ocean of material creation is but the casting of His glance over us.

Modesty is the upper portion of His lips, hankering is His chin, religion is the breast of the Lord, and irreligion is His back. Brahmājī and the Mitra-varunas, who generate all living beings in the material world, are His genitals. The ocean is His waist, and the hills and mountains are the stacks of His bones.

The rivers are the veins of the gigantic body, the trees are the hairs of His body, and the omnipotent air is His breath. The passing ages are His movements, and His activities are the reactions of the three modes of material nature.

The clouds which carry water are the hairs on His head, the terminations of days or nights are His dress, and the supreme cause of material creation is His intelligence. His mind is the moon, the reservoir of all changes. The principle of matter is the consciousness of the omnipresent Lord, and Rudradeva is His ego.

Varieties of birds are indications of His masterful artistic sense. Manu, the father of mankind, is the emblem of His standard intelligence, and humanity is His residence. The celestial species of human beings, like the Gandharvas, Vidyādharas, Cāraṇas and angels, all represent His musical rhythm, and the demoniac soldiers are representations of His wonderful prowess.

I have thus explained to you the gross material gigantic conception of the Personality of Godhead. One who seriously desires liberation concentrates his mind on this form of the Lord, because there is nothing more than this in the material world.

One should concentrate his mind upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who alone distributes Himself in so many manifestations just as ordinary persons create thousands of manifestations in dreams. One must concentrate the mind on Him, the only all-blissful Absolute Truth.

-- Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 2 Chapter 1, "First Steps in God Realization"

(Un)Conscious Projection (Grossinger)

2010-08-22T05:13:00.003-07:00

Most people, trapped as they are in symbol clusters and instincts, do not even know that they exist. Even the smartest of us are enacting bare protocols of subsistence, food acquisition, self-projection, and object possession. We are set on the implacable tracks of a machinery of eternal return. .... What are we unknowingly projecting now, that in twenty thousand years will become the Earth? Will our civilization of machines survive long enough to launch a civilization of light?

-- Richard Grossinger, from 2013: Raising the Earth to the Next Vibration (p. 58)

The Edge (Hunter Thompson)

2010-08-07T23:24:00.001-07:00

The Edge ... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In.

-- Hunter S. Thompson, "Midnight on the Coast Highway" (reprinted in Songs of the Doomed)

Creativity and youth (Hoffer)

2010-08-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

The tendency to carry youthful characteristics into adult life, which renders man perpetually immature and unfinished, is at the root of his uniqueness in the Universe, and is particularly pronounced in the creative individual. . . . The creative individual is an imperishable juvenile.

– Eric Hoffer

Awakened in context

2010-07-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

To know yourself as an awakened individual is also to know yourself as the being of the surrounding context.

-- Starseed: The Third Millennium

Open to enlightenment

2010-07-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

Change people by opening them up to a new dimension of reality. Everyone has the potential for enlightenment if you are open to them. Accept the other person's reality if you are going to communicate with them; otherwise, you are just playing a word game.

-- Gridley Wright (1934-1979)

Paths and paths (Castaneda)

2010-07-04T20:24:00.004-07:00

All paths are the same. They lead nowhere. They are paths going into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does your path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere, but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong, the other weakens you.

-- Carlos Castaneda

The one certain truth (Wm. James)

2010-06-05T21:40:00.001-07:00

There is but one indisputably certain truth, and that is the truth that skepticism itself leaves standing: The truth that the present phenomenon of consciousness exists. That, however, is the bare starting-point of knowledge -- the mere admission of a stuff to be philosophized about. The various philosophies are but so many attempts at expressing what this stuff really is.

-- William James (1842-1910), from "The Will to Believe"

Testing tradition (Clifford)

2010-05-30T17:42:00.001-07:00

In regard to the sacred tradition of humanity, we learn that it consists not in propositions or statements which are to be accepted on the authority of tradition, but in questions rightly asked, in conceptions which enable us to ask further questions, and in methods of answering questions. The value of all these things depends on their being tested day by day. The very sacredness of the precious deposit imposes upon us the duty and responsibility of testing it, of purifying and enlarging it to the utmost of our power.

-- William K. Clifford (1845-1879), British philosopher

Mind and God (Dyson)

2010-05-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

I do not make any distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension. Atoms and humans and God may have minds that differ in degree but not in kind. We stand midway between the unpredictability of atoms and the unpredictability of God. Atoms are small pieces of our mental apparatus, and we are small pieces of God's mental apparatus.

-- Freeman Dyson

Intelligence of the Abstract (Hertz)

2010-04-25T20:03:00.001-07:00

One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulas have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own; that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers; that we get more out of them than was originally put into them.

-- Heinrich Hertz

The Lighted Way (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi)

2010-04-18T19:43:00.001-07:00

There is a phrase: "Man is the master of his own destiny." So the destiny of every man doesn’t depend on the existence of a Maharishi or his absence. Man is the master of his own destiny. A Maharishi is showing a way. Who comes on the lighted way will get to the target, will get to the goal of the way; those who don’t, they won’t, that’s all. Man has a choice. Education is so very limited today, but a Maharishi’s message does not remain limited to his physical body. This is the message that was there before the body of a Maharishi, and it will remain there when the body of a Maharishi will not come up.

-- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Diary

2010-03-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

"Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary."

-- Chuck Palahniuk, from Diary: A Novel

Art (Chabon)

2010-02-28T01:09:00.002-08:00

Every great work of art is one half of a secret handshake, a challenge that seeks the password, a heliograph flashed from a tower window, an act of hopeless optimism in the service of bottomless longing. Every great record or novel or comic book convenes the first meeting of a fan club whose membership stands forever at one but which maintains chapters in every city – in every cranium – in the world. Art, like fandom, asserts the possibility of fellowship in a world built entirely from the materials of solitude. The novelist, the cartoonist, the songwriter, knows that the gesture is doomed from the beginning but makes it anyway, flashes his bit of mirror, not on the chance that the signal will be seen or understood but as if such a chance existed.

– Michael Chabon, from Manhood for Amateurs

Goal of philosophy (Wittgenstein)

2010-01-24T00:16:00.000-08:00

The goal of philosophy is to build a wall where language comes to an end.

-- Wittgenstein

On Limits (Wittgenstein)

2010-01-17T01:10:00.000-08:00

5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

5.61 Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits …. What we cannot think, we cannot think; we cannot therefore say what we cannot think.

6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it happens. In it there is no value – and if there were, it would be of no value. If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happenings and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.

– Wittgenstein, from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophus

Self-sustenance of nature (Aurelius)

2010-01-10T01:01:00.003-08:00

Nature has no door to sweep things out of. But the wonderful thing about its workmanship is how, faced with that limitation, it takes everything within it that seems broken, old and useless, transforms it into itself, and makes new things from it, so that it doesn't need material from any outside source, or anywhere to dispose of what's left over. It relies on itself for all it needs: space, material, and labor.

-- Marcus Aurelius, from the Meditations, sect. 8.50

Resolved

2010-01-03T01:15:00.002-08:00

Resolve in this new decade to pull harder on the energies from above, to open up to more and more light & wisdom, to dig deeper and uplevel your own energies within and around you.

YES in the face of change

2009-12-30T20:32:00.001-08:00

As we approach the end of another calendar year, and in fact the beginning of a new decade, our thoughts may turn to the inevitability of change. When we embrace change and the challenges of a new year in our own lives, we find that our transformation is accelerated. Resistance to change does not alter its inevitability. On the path, only a continual "YES" to the processes of change moves us forward in a substantial way.

Aurobindo on inconscience

2009-12-24T22:21:00.002-08:00

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil with its sweet and bitter fruits is secretly rooted in the very nature of the Inconscience from which our being has emerged and on which it still stands as a nether soil and basis of our physical existence; it has grown visibly on the surface in the manifold branchings of the Ignorance which is still the main bulk and condition of our consciousness in its difficult evolution towards a supreme consciousness and an integral awareness. As long as there is this soil with the unfound roots in it and this nourishing air and climate of Ignorance, the tree will grow and flourish and put forth its dual blossoms and its fruit of mixed nature. It would follow that there can be no final solution until we have turned our inconscience into the greater consciousness, made the truth of self and spirit our life-basis and transformed our ignorance into a higher knowledge.

-- Aurobindo, from The Life Divine, p. 627

Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2

2009-12-21T06:49:00.002-08:00

The wise say that the truth of reality is known as Brahman, Paramatma, or Bhagavan -- the highest, unmanifest cosmic Consciousness. Sages who with wisdom and non-attachment delve deeply into this will see within themselves and this conciousness in pure devotion what they have read in the scriptures. For all types of human, regardless of station, the highest form of practice is found in devotion to God. With this devotion as a focal point for the mind, the Lord within is unveiled to one.

-- Srimad Bhagavatam Canto I Ch. 2, vv. 11-14.

Petros class: Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

2009-12-10T18:13:00.005-08:00

Petros will be giving a one-hour class introducing the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali on Friday, 11 December 2009 at Alpha Books (4532 N. 7th St. Phoenix).

The Yoga Sutras may be read at: http://home.earthlink.net/~xristos/patanjali.htm.

Truth is Truth (Kay)

2009-11-30T20:59:00.000-08:00

Only by starting with who and what I am is the problem precluded; all fear is removed; and then one may do the right thing, if there is 'doing' to be done. He or she beholds that Spirit is the sole self, that is 'I,' and this leaves no need for evolvement, cross-bearing, or crown-wearing; and already truth is truth.

-- Kay, 1994 Atlanta Awareness Center, tape 5N

Experience of No-Self (B. Roberts)

2009-11-29T16:47:00.002-08:00

It was only by investing no value in an experience that I was able to find out its truth or falsity. What is false never lasts; it falls away of its own accord, while what is true remains, because truth does not come and go -- it is always there. So long as our experiences come and go and we are investing in them our own values, thoughts and emotions, we'll never find out if there is any truth in them, for truth is what remains when there are no experiences left.

-- Bernadette Roberts, from The Experience of No-Self

Meditation shown to lower blood pressure

2009-11-25T12:19:00.003-08:00

A new study published in the American Journal of Hypertension has shown that meditative practice can have a measurably positive influence on lowering high blood pressure and improving overall cardiovascular health. The study involved nearly 300 individuals, about half of whom meditated regularly. Preliminary results suggest that the meditators' group was able to substantially lower blood pressure and evidence other positive effects in comparison to the control group.

http://tinyurl.com/yzbsq62

http://tinyurl.com/ykacmkn

Origins of life may lie in electrochemical processes

2009-11-10T09:13:00.002-08:00

A few bioscientists in recent years have been rethinking the origin of life in the light of some new ideas. They think the most counter-intuitive trait of life is one of the best clues to its origin. As a result, they have come up with a radically different picture of what the earliest life was like and where it evolved. It's a picture for which there is growing evidence. Life, the new idea argues, is powered not by the kind of chemistry that goes on in a test tube but by a kind of electricity.

http://tinyurl.com/yj3nx55

Begin with oneself (Buber)

2009-10-25T22:42:00.002-07:00

Just the perspective, in which a man sees himself only as an individual contrasted with other individuals, and not as a genuine person whose transformation helps towards the transformation of the world, contains the fundamental error which hasidic teaching denounces. The essential thing is to begin with oneself, and at this moment a man has nothing in the world to care about other than this beginning. Any other attitude would distract him from what he is about to begin, weaken his initiative, and thus frustrate the entire bold undertaking.

-- Martin Buber, from The Way of Man According to the Teaching of Hasidism.

How the brain creates "time"

2009-10-23T03:09:00.002-07:00

Perhaps the most fundamental question neuroscientists are investigating is whether our perception of the world is continuous or a series of discrete snapshots like frames on a film strip. Understand this, and maybe we can explain how the healthy brain works out the chronological order of the myriad events bombarding our senses, and how this can become warped to alter our perception of time.

It seems that each separate neural process that governs our perception might be recorded in its own stream of discrete frames. But how might all these streams fit together to give us a consistent picture of the world? Ernst Pöppel, a neuroscientist at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, suggests all of the separate snapshots from the senses may feed into blocks of information in a higher processing stream. He calls these the "building blocks of consciousness" and reckons they underlie our perception of time

"Perception cannot be continuous because of [the limits of] neural processing," says Pöppel. "A space of 30 to 50 milliseconds is necessary to bring together in one time-window the distributed activity in the neural system."

-- from New Scientist magazine (http://tinyurl.com/yh8ebs9)

Wright

2009-10-19T01:26:00.002-07:00

If God dropped acid, would he see people?

-- Steven Wright

Easy as ABCDE

2009-10-02T23:23:00.004-07:00

Enlightenment is as simple as ABCDE: Always Being Conscious Divine Energy.

Humans Glow in Visible Light

2009-09-26T12:50:00.003-07:00

Scientists in Japan using special high-sensitivity cameras have found that the human body emits a tiny quantity of visible light which varies throughout the day. Unlike the body's usual infrared (heat) radiation which is already well known, this visible light is believed to be a product of various biochemical reactions in the body which can fluctuate based upon changes in the body's metabolism. Future research may investigate the effect that the mind or meditation could have on controlling this light output.

(LiveScience.com, 22 Jul 2009)

Action of the whole (Buber)

2009-09-20T01:03:00.004-07:00

An action of the whole being must approach passivity, for it does away with all partial actions, and thus with any sense of action, which always depends on limited exertions.

-- Martin Buber, from I and You (trans. Kaufmann)

Approaches to Infinity (Escher)

2009-09-12T02:35:00.002-07:00

When one dives into endlessness, in both time and space, farther and farther without stopping, one needs fixed points or milestones past which one speeds. Without these, one’s movement does not differ from standing still. There must be stars along which one shoots, beacons from which one can measure the road covered. One must divide one’s universe in distances of a specific length, in compartments that repeat themselves in endless series. At every border crossing between one compartment and the next, one’s clock ticks. . . . When one is finished, however, and looks at what he has done, then one sees something that is static and timeless. In his representation, no clock ticks. Only a flat, motionless expanse is revealed.

There is something breathtaking in such laws. They are not inventions or creations of the human mind, but “are” or “exist” independently of us. During a moment of clarity one can at the most discover their existence or become aware of them.

– M.C. Escher (1898-1972) , from “Approaches to Infinity”

Three sorts of being

2009-09-05T22:33:00.003-07:00

"Tell me what you do with the food you eat, and I'll tell you who you are. Some turn their food into fat and manure, some into work and good humor, and some, I'm told, into God. So there must be three sorts of men."

-- Kazantzakis, from Zorba the Greek

Birthday Message 2009 (Kazantzakis)

2009-08-29T01:22:00.004-07:00

I believe in the innumerable, the ephemeral masks which God has assumed throughout the centuries, and behind his ceaseless flux I discern an indestructable unity.

I believe in his sleepless and violent struggle which tames and fructifies the earth as the life-giving fountain of plants, animals and men.

Blessed be all those who hear and rush to free you, Lord, and who say, "Only you and I exist."

Blessed be all those who free you and become united with you, Lord, and who say, "You and I are one."

And thrice blessed be those who bear on their shoulders and do not buckle under this great, sublime, and terrifying secret: That even this one does not exist!

We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life.

-- Nikos Kazantzakis, from The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises (1927)

No other shore (J. Krishnamurti)

2009-08-23T00:23:00.002-07:00

There is no way to the other shore. There is no action, no prescription, no behavior that will open the door to the other. It is not an evolutionary process; it is not the end of a discipline; it cannot be bought or given or invited. If this is clear, if the mind has forgotten itself and no longer says 'the other bank' or 'this bank,' if the mind has stopped groping and searching, if there is total emptiness and space within the mind itself, then and only then is it there.

-- J. Krishnamurti, from Freedom, Love and Action

Creation over life (H. Miller)

2009-08-18T12:13:00.002-07:00

From the little reading I had done I had observed that the men who were the most in life, who were molding life, who were life itself, ate little, slept little, owned little or nothing. They had no illusions about duty, or about the perpetuation of their kith and kin, or the preservation of the State. They were interested in truth and in truth alone. They recognized only one kind of activity – creation. Nobody could command their services because they had of their own pledged themselves to give all. They gave gratuitously, because that is the only way to give.

-- Henry Miller, from Sexus

The spirituality of Harry Potter

2009-08-01T20:27:00.003-07:00

There are still religious proponents who insist that the Potter tales are about witchcraft and should be banned. Yet those of us who have journeyed with the characters through the pages of these books know that the Harry Potter series is not really about the wizarding world. It is about the struggle of good versus evil, the power of friendship and growing into adult roles and responsibilities in serious times.

There is a saying, “Religion is for those who are afraid to go to hell; spirituality is for those who have already been there.” In an earlier volume, Luna advises Harry as to why they can see the beasts that lead the carriages taking Hogwarts students to school. Both Luna and Harry have seen death, and only those who have done so can see the beasts. The Harry Potter series is not a religious pageant, as some have described the long-running comic Peanuts. Harry is growing up in a world where the stakes are high, the dangers are many, the losses are great and friendship is the greatest asset that anyone could have in any challenge.

-- Cindy Bowman, Portland Spiritual Living Examiner

Rest of article at link:
http://tinyurl.com/n77fmr

Recession boosts ashram attendance

2009-07-19T12:14:00.002-07:00

A New York Times story recently described how yoga retreats and meditation programs across the United States are experiencing, in some cases, greatly increased numbers of short and long term visitors who come seeking refuge from the troubled economy or who have found that signing up for a work-exchange program is a cost effective way to spend some time between jobs while also building up their spiritual energies.

Full story at link.
http://tinyurl.com/koz7z2

Photo: Devotees join in kirtan signing at New Vrindaban ashram in Pennsylvania.

Open-eye meditation

2009-07-13T00:33:00.002-07:00

Based on 3D technology, open-eye meditation (OEM) does not require the meditator to close his eyes, nor is it time-consuming. According to meditation consultant Ramesh Kamath, "You need to look at a chart printed using 3-D techniques. After a few seconds, a hidden religious symbol will appear on the chart. Your meditation is complete and you will be relieved by just seeing the symbol for five minutes a day." Aura meter technology is used to assess the intensity and kind of problems a person faces, he added. The medium can be used to deal with anxiety, stress-related problems and depression.

http://tinyurl.com/m2qn8w

eWakenTube update

2009-07-09T16:39:00.001-07:00

Check out our YouTube channel, eWakenTube. Just updated with a bold, new look.

http://www.youtube.com/user/eWakenTube

Ancient Sikh martial art comes to the West

2009-07-05T14:15:00.002-07:00

Ancient but deadly: the return of Shastar Vidiya
(from the Independent UK)

Shastar Vidiya is a once-popular but today little-known fighting technique from north India that was forced to go underground when banned by the British in the 19th century, to be replaced by the mostly ceremonial "gatka" style seen at Sikh festivals. Though the art itself had been practiced prior to the emergence of Sikhism, it was the Punjabi Sikh tribes -- in particular the blue-turbaned Akhali Nihangs, the elite among Sikh warriors -- who honed it to its highest pitch of perfection and uniqueness.

Indian monks were the first to export Buddha's new teachings across the Himalayas and legend has it that it was the great Indian monk and zen pioneer Bodhidharma who first introduced martial arts to the Shaolin Temple in AD 600. Bodhidharma himself is thought to have come from south India where another indigenous fighting style known as Kalaripayattu has also undergone a recent renaissance.

However, Shastar Vidiya is more than simply a fighting style. Practitioners are expected to live up to strict religious principles and honor martial codes, demonstrating the unity of body, mind and spirit that is the real essence of ancient martial arts.

Today, a handful of British Sikhs have begun teaching this art to the public in an attempt to revive it for the 21st century world. More on this story at the link.

http://tinyurl.com/dxoc6o

Why great minds can't grasp consciousness

2009-07-02T00:54:00.003-07:00

By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer

It wasn't that long ago that the study of consciousness was considered to be too abstract, too subjective or too difficult to study scientifically. But in recent years, it has emerged as one of the hottest new fields in biology, similar to string theory in physics or the search for extraterrestrial life in astronomy.

No longer the sole purview of philosophers and mystics, consciousness is now attracting the attention of scientists from across a variety of different fields, each, it seems, with their own theories about what consciousness is and how it arises from the brain.

Instead of trying to reduce consciousness to something else, some scientists suggest that consciousness should simply be taken for granted, the way that space and time and mass are in physics. But other researchers find this view unhelpful and suggest that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, similar to the 'wetness' of water or the 'transparency' of glass, both of which are properties that are the result of the actions of individual molecules.

http://tinyurl.com/5we3xq

Kazakhstan to host 3rd triennial Interfaith Conference

2009-06-30T16:50:00.003-07:00

The two-day Congress of World and Traditional Religions is scheduled to open this week in the new Kazakhstan capital of Astana. It will be the third such congress to be hosted by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev after previous meetings in 2003 and 2006. The conference represents part of a wider effort by Kazakh leaders to position their nation as a meeting ground for the discussion of religious differences.

In attendance will be a Roman Catholic cardinal responsible for interfaith dialogue at the Vatican, the grand imam of the Al-Azhar Mosque of Cairo, various Protestant representatives, and Israel's chief rabbi, among others.

The impressive spectrum expected at the gathering is precisely what Nazarbayev has sought to create: an effort to make Kazakhstan's unique religious openness a lever for influencing the region.

Photo on upper left: The Pyramid of Peace, constructed in 2006 in Astana to represent various different religions. It is conceived as a global center for religious understanding. Here delegates from around the world meet for the trienniel Interfaith Congress. The center also includes a research library and national cultural museum.

http://tinyurl.com/neh4pr

Brain scans reveal hypnosis in action

2009-06-28T11:59:00.004-07:00

A brain researcher in Switzerland recently published the results of a study which showed that the brains of a group of hypnotized volunteers reacted to the hypnosis by changing the way different brain regions interacted to movement initiation stimuli. The research is further evidence of the scientific basis for hypnosis and related brain technologies such as meditation, and how these ancient techniques actually work in the brain.

http://tinyurl.com/m86orf

Somali Sufis fight back against shrine desecration

2009-06-17T21:28:00.007-07:00

Since they began to capture large swathes of southern Somalia, radical Islamists have been undertaking a programme of destroying mosques and the graves of revered religious leaders from the Sufi branch of Islam. The destruction of non-approved religious sites started last year when they began to knock down an old colonial era church in the town of Kismayo.

Most Somalis are Sufi Muslims, who do not share the strict Saudi Arabian-inspired Wahhabi interpretation of Islam with the hardline al-Shabab group. They embrace music, dancing and meditation and are appalled at the desecration of the graves.

But al-Shabab sees things differently. The group's spokesman in the town of Kismayo, Sheikh Hassan Yaquub, told the BBC Somali Service that his movement considered that the memorials were being worshipped and that this was idolatry - banned by Islam.

Grave are being desecrated wherever al-Shabab is in control. But there is evidence that the anger generated by such actions is stirring the usually peaceful Sufis to take up arms and fight back against al-Shabab. The umbrella group Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama (Sufi Sects in Somalia) has condemned the actions of what they call the ideology of modern Wahhabism and the desecrations of graves. They see Wahhabism as foreign and ultimately un-Islamic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8077725.stm

Inner space: The power of solitude

2009-06-14T17:15:00.003-07:00

(From the Independent, 15 June 2009)

It's no coincidence that in the West even something such as psychoanalysis, which shelters under the official umbrella of being a science, has historically always been more strongly linked to continental Europe and America than the UK. But this isn't psychoanalysis; this is Vipassana. Meaning "to see things as they really are", it's the technique the Buddha himself practised – so before Buddhism itself even existed. Passed on from generation to generation by a chain of devoted teachers, it's thanks to one of these teachers – a Burmese industrialist called S. N. Goenka – that it's now taught in centres all over the world.

Set amongst 22 acres of rolling countryside, the centre (called Dhamma Dipa – "island of dhamma", dhamma being "the way to liberation") is based around an old farmyard. More recently used as a riding school for children, it was bought and converted in 1991. Although Vipassana courses are also held in East Anglia, London and Sussex, Dhamma Dipa is the only dedicated centre in Britain. In the early days it ran courses for 50 students who sat in a drafty barn rather than in the modern hall they do today; and now it can take 130 of them. More than 30 courses are run each year at the centre, most of which last for the standard 10 days – although there are shorter and longer courses for children and students who have been before. In 2008 around 1,300 people completed courses here; in the 18 years since Dhamma Dipa opened, approximately 15,000 people, from all walks of life, have passed through its doors. Perhaps most remarkably, all the courses are completely free.

Read the full story, including a personal memoir of a meditation retreat undergone by the writer, at:

http://tinyurl.com/mdklmg

The Sorcerer's Freedom

2009-06-08T22:38:00.002-07:00

A sorcerer is in the hands of power and his only freedom is to choose an impeccable life.

-- Carlos Castaneda

Sensation and urbanism (Jung)

2009-05-18T17:46:00.005-07:00

Rationalism and boredom are essentially products of the over-indulged craving for stimulation so characteristic of urban populations. The city-dweller seeks artificial sensations to escape his boredom; the hermit does not seek them but is plagued by them against his will.

-- C.J. Jung, from Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky

Character of God (Smith)

2009-05-10T17:24:00.003-07:00

It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did.

-- from The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith

Americans not losing their religion, just changing it

2009-04-28T12:10:00.002-07:00

More than half of American adults have changed religion in their lives, a huge new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found. And there is no discernible pattern to the change, just "a free for all," according to one of the lead researchers in the study, who attributes these shifting loyalties as simply "the free market at work."

The number of people who have changed religion is much higher than previously thought, the new report suggests. A study released last year concluded that just over one in four Americans had switched. Even that lower number was considered "striking," the Pew Forum said, and the latest research suggests it was a serious underestimate.

More than four in 10 American adults are no longer members of the religion they were brought up in, while about one in 10 changed religion, then went back to the one they left, the study found. Just under half have never changed religious affiliation.

Some have switched more than once, and a small number have changed three times or more, according to the study.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/27/changing.religion.study/index.html

Mental Revolution (Halal)

2009-04-13T13:38:00.004-07:00

Just as the Industrial Revolution was powered by the need to overcome poverty, and the Information Technology Revolution is crucial for managing complexity, the world is today in the throes of a 'mental revolution' to resolve the global crisis of maturity.

-- William Halal, from Technology's Promise

Affinity of Spirits (Kardec)

2009-03-31T10:35:00.002-07:00

It is a mistake to suppose that a man must be a medium in order to attract to himself the beings of the invisible world. Space is peopled with spirits; they are always around us, always beside us; they see us and watch us; they mingle in our meetings, and follow or avoid us, according as we attract or repel them. The medianimic faculty has no influence in this respect; for that faculty is only a means of communication. After what we have said respecting the causes of sympathy and antipathy in spirits, it will be easily understood that we are surrounded by those who are in affinity with us, whether our state be one of elevation or of degradation.

-- Allan Kardec, from The Mediums' Book (point 223)

Attainment of the Supreme (Gita)

2009-03-25T10:46:00.005-07:00

Physical nature is known to be endlessly mutable. The universe is the cosmic form of the Supreme Lord, and I am that Lord represented as the Supersoul, dwelling in the heart of every embodied being. Whoever, at the time of death, quits his body, remembering Me alone, at once attains My nature. Of this there is no doubt.

-- Gita 8.4-5 (trans. Prabhupada)

Pre-existence of the spirit (B. Young)

2009-03-16T15:14:00.003-07:00

I want to tell you, each and every one of you, that you are well acquainted with God our Heavenly Father, or the great Eloheim. You are well acquainted with him, for there is not a soul of you but what has lived in His house and dwelt with Him year after year; and yet you are seeking to become acquainted with Him, when the fact is you have merely forgotten what you did know.

-- Brigham Young, from the Journal of Discourses

Spirit influence (Kardec)

2009-03-10T12:41:00.002-07:00

"The transformation of the human race has been predicted from the most ancient times, and you are now approaching the period when it is destined to take place. All those among you who are laboring to advance the progress of mankind are helping to hasten this transformation, which will be effected through the incarnation, in your earth, of spirits of higher degree, who will constitute a new population, of greater moral advancement than the human races they will gradually have replaced."

-- Allan Kardec, from The Spirits Book (IV.8)

Importance of the human stage (E.J. Gold)

2009-03-05T20:57:00.002-08:00

The act of being human is a necessary and important stage in the evolution of a planet and more importantly to you, in the personal evolution of the being. It allows us to actively participate in self-evolution by fusing the intellectual, emotional and physical centers into a single unified presence through the process of intentional suffering; to perfect ourselves through conscious labors; and to attain crystallization of the soul through the process of the collection and transformation of higher substances.

-- E.J. Gold, from Autobiography of a Sufi

Shobogenzo (Dogen)

2009-03-01T22:36:00.003-08:00

To carry yourself forward experiencing myriad things is delusion. The fact that myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

-- Dogen, from Shobogenzo, part 1: Genjo Koan (Actualizing the Fundamental Point)

Rays of consciousness (Ouspensky)

2009-02-27T12:29:00.002-08:00

If the world is a Great Something, possessing the consciousness of itself, so we are rays of that consciousness which is conscious of itself, but unconcious of the whole.

-- P.D. Ouspensky, from Tertium Organum

Direct perception (E.J. Gold)

2009-02-24T14:51:00.001-08:00

The disintegration of ordinary perception in favor of direct perception is the chemistry of symbolic reality exploding inside the psyche.

-- E.J. Gold, from Autobiography of a Sufi

The whole and the fraction (DFJ)

2009-02-20T11:52:00.003-08:00

Only a fraction of the Whole can pass away in any moment, since only a fraction of the Whole appears in any moment.

-- Da Free John, from The Eating Gorilla Comes in Peace

Projecting the universe (Rudhyar)

2009-02-03T14:55:00.002-08:00

Man projects upon the outer universe what he potentially is, yet does not know he is, in order to discover and actualize his innate potential of being. Man collectively "creates" the universe he needs, simply because he needs it in order to operate with maximum efficiency.

-- Dane Rudhyar, from The Sun is Also a Star: The Galactic Dimension of Astrology

Being and Time (Heidegger)

2009-01-25T15:27:00.003-08:00

"Being" cannot be derived from higher concepts by definition, nor can it be presented through lower ones. But does this imply that "Being" no longer offers a problem? Not at all. We can infer only that "Being" cannot have the character of an entity. Thus we cannot apply to "Being" the concept of definition as presented in traditional logic, which itself has its foundation in ancient ontology and which, within certain limits, provides a quite justifiable way of defining "entities." The indefinability of "Being" does not eliminate the question of its meaning; it demands that we look that question in the face.

-- Heidegger, from Being and Time